A Year of Springs is a charming quirky tale about three young woman in Japan. This visual novel brings some current matters to the forefront.
CCG writes - "The entire plot of the games revolves around gender and sexuality in some way. In One Night, Hot Springs, it revolves around Haru explaining the day to day challenges of being transgender to Erika, who mentions she is bisexual (she says that "she dated a girl once"). In Last Day of Spring, it switches to Erika, where she struggles to book a spa for Haru's birthday, and finds it outrageous that a transgender "woman" can't enter women's spaces. In Spring Leaves No Flowers, Manami goes on to discover that she is "aromantic and asexual," which is basically a fancy way of saying she doesn't really feel romantic attraction (supposedly, that is. Manami has a boyfriend throughout the entire series). In this game, there is a point (which is probably supposed to be a pivotal moment) where Erika asks Manami if she has ever felt proper sexual attraction. In the epilogue, Erika and Haru end up moving in together, and they mention that they needed "an LGBT-friendly realtor" in order to do so, as the series takes place in Japan."
Michael Kitchin writes, "A Year of Springs is a collection of surprisingly well-written visual novels that handle a very personal subject in a provocative way. The tales of friendships, doubts and acceptance are nice to see play out. At times, it's mundane and everyday and the conflicts are small but being able to show those internal conflicts are very effective. It ends up feeling surprisingly wholesome and enjoyable."
Dave writes: "If you’ve ever enjoyed an otome visual novel, we couldn’t recommend A YEAR OF SPRINGS more. On the surface, this is a gentle, heartwarming tale of three friends moving in different directions. Below that surface, it has a mission: to expose what it is to be a transgender person in the conform-culture of modern day Japan."
